Birds at sunrise

Trying to take birds or animals in the early morning low light is very challenging, but I feel it really is the best time of the day.

Equipment wise you really need a fast lens (F4 or better) and a camera that excels at high iso settings. I am fortunate I have a reasonably fast lens (F5.6) and the Eos 6D is pretty good up to iso settings 6400. I almost always shoot manual, shutter speed greater than 1/400th, F5.6 and auto iso. All the images below have had some kind of post processing activity, usually some saturation, shadow boosting, sharpening and brightening a bit.

I hope you like looking at them as much as I love taking them.

These images above were taken at a local nature reserve, I am lucky to be able to have this opportunity close to where I live. Although when I get up at silly o'clock on a freezing morning to go out, my wife does suggest I am slightly mad.

This outing was supposed to be a dawn landscape shoot at Rutland water.

I was able to grab a few shots of the magical Normanton church but as I was starting to put the gear away the birds started to fly by quite low to the water. Out came the 400mm lens and I sat on the foreshore for the next hour in my element.

Greylag Geese in the early evening.

I am claiming a bit of poetic licence here, I know this page says sunrise but sunset is also great and i love the simplicity of this image.